Happy New Year

We hope everyone's having a good 2009 so far. Looking back on 2008, we thought we'd make a quick video summarizing our year. Have a look.

Back to School

We've been in US now for slightly under a week and I'm definitely happy about being back. Our move into our new apartment was somewhat of a disaster - Manish's flight in from Seattle got cancelled and I ended up having to deal with cranky movers all by myself, parts of our furniture were missing and couldn't be reassembled for a while, and some of our boxes are still not here. However, we have almost settled in - and even cooked dinner at home tonight! It's really nice living in an urban area. There are two Indian grocery stores within walking distance from our apartment!

I start classes tomorrow and I am strangely excited about that. Hopefully I will be able to remember this feeling when I am sleep deprived :)

Anyway, as you can see, Manish and I are thinking that we might continue this blog. Our updates will probably not be as exciting, but who knows, maybe they will :)

A Splash of Color

When we got to Santorini, we were surrounded by muted colors. Brown cliffs, hazy blue sea. Beautiful, in a calm way. As we explored the island further, we realized that there really were splashes of color everywhere. Red pebbles on the red beach. Whitewashed churches with gorgeous blue domes. Bright buildings every now and then that looked like they should be in Venice. And most amazingly, the incredible hues of the famous sunset. One evening, we scrambled over some rocks and found our way to the top of an isolated church - where we shared the sunset with a couple from Nice. The next evening, we joined the masses in Oia for a magical, if not peaceful, sunset. Really - people actually started clapping once the sun went down. All part of the touristy fun though :) 


Soon our vacation will come to an end, and I am already starting to get a little sad about that. However, we have one last hurrah before we board the flight home. We are heading to Central Greece tomorrow to check out Delphi and Meteora. Meteroa, especially is supposed to be quite hot, but extremely pretty. 

Wi-fi at Piraeus Port

We are waiting to board our catamaran to Santorini, and I discovered that the port we are waiting at has wi-fi! Of course, the boat itself is delayed by an undetermined amount. It was supposed to leave 15 minutes ago, but hasn't even arrived yet. Latest information (that is not broadcast, but can be found out upon asking) is that the boat will arrive here in 45 minutes, and will take off again whenever it is ready to leave after that. No wonder they make Internet available for free here :) 

Happy Birthday, Manish!

Manish turned a year younger today and we had a fabulous day in Athens celebrating this occasion :) Amit and his parents even sang "Happy Birthday" in Portuguese as we ate lunch in a Greek restaurant. 

I love Athens so far - it's busy and active and every so often one chances upon an ancient ruin. After dinner today we walked past an old-looking building. Anywhere else, one would wonder about the dilapidated condition of such a building; here we wondered whether it was something important a long time ago ... what a difference context can make! 

Crazy Train, Fancy Cars

We took the train from Prague to Munich yesterday. We were repeatedly told that we didn't need any reserved seats for this train - just our tickets. We showed up at the train station we were supposed to depart from, and were told that we needed to go to another train station about 15-20 minutes away by metro. Taken by surprise, but too sleepy to dwell on the strangeness of this, we headed to the other station. Our train was already waiting on the platform. We walked through a couple of carriages without finding any seats and finally found a compartment with four open seats. I grabbed it right away and beckoned Manish and Huat Chye to come over quickly.

Of course, we weren't the only ones who had to deal with this. More people found their way to the new train station as the train's departure time approached. A fair number got on the train, but a large number were left behind. For those who got on the train, finding a seat was quite impossible. A girl grabbed the remaining seat in our compartment, while her brother and all their luggage remained in the passageway (he had a pillow and an ipod - and made himself quite comfortable on the filthy floor :)). The passage was quite full; even the doors to the bathrooms were blocked by people on the train without seats. I hadn't seen a train like this in a long, long time - the last time was in 1992, when my family traveled in the unreserved coach on a train from Bombay to Ahmedabad for an urgent last-minute thing. It was quite the experience - and I was amazed by how people adapted to these circumstances. Tourists really are hardy people.

Of course, it was only fitting then to head to the BMW Welt (where they show off their new cars) once we got to Munich. Manish ogled at the cars, Huat Chye marveled at the design of the building and I got engrossed in their branding videos on a table top touch screen (yes, I was ready to go work for them as I finished watching these - good job, design team!). It really is impressive that BMW spends that much money marketing their cars - a whole museum for the new cars (in addition to one we didn't visit that housed the old cars!).

In these last couple of days, I have rediscovered skirts as the weather gets better - more airy than capris, more elegant than shorts. Of course there are some circumstances in which the skirt doesn't work so well - like when one is pretend-riding a motorcycle :)

After the BMW visit, one of my future classmates gave us a great walking tour of Munich. Today, we are in Athens - while we toured the Acropolis, we ran into Amit (my freshman dormmate, good friend, and future classmate to boot). The world really is quite small :)

Rain and the Food Tour

We know we've been out of touch for the past few days. We've been busy eating! Starting last Sunday, it has rained wherever we were. Much of our time in Salzburg, Hallstatt and Vienna was marked by rain (the curse finally broke today and we had a brilliant day in Prague). However, we are hardy tourists - and refused to stay at our hotel for even a day. The result - we found shelter in the many eateries around town! In Vienna, we sat around in several local cafes - where for the price of a cup of coffee, one can read the paper and hang out for as long as one wants. We also sampled the famous "Original" Sachertorte at the touristy Sacher Cafe. Sachertorte (dry-ish chocolate cake) is apparently Austria's largest export. Various types of pastries and Kaiserschmarnn (pancakes with plum jam) also made their way to our stomachs. I still salivate when I think of the chocolate mousse cake we had at a famous pastry cafe that Rick Steves claims is the place Viennese people go to get fat. We got to Prague yesterday and were immediately caught in a thunderstorm. Undaunted, we went and ate yummy honeycakes at a cafe that is quite far from the tourist beat. 
In addition to eating, we have been very social. Huat Chye is with us this week. We also spent time with one of my future classmates in Vienna. She invited us to her house - and we spent time in a real home for the first time in 6 weeks. It felt good :) One of my classmates from undergrad happened to be in Prague today and we toured the city with him and his aunt. It's been great seeing other people! 

Prague is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen on this trip. I will be sad to leave it, but tomorrow we head to Munich, and from there to Athens on Monday. We hope that we will finally be far away from the rain!